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Resolved: In the United States, plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust
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[Edit] In the United States, plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust. |
[Edit] Background and Context of Debate:A plea bargain is a process in which the defendant arranges a ‘deal’ with the prosecution. A plea bargain essentially means that a defendant charged with multiple crimes will plead guilty to a certain charge in order to escape going to trial for a more serious charge. In the United States, the majority of criminal cases are settled through plea bargains. It is important to recognize, however, that while the majority of criminal cases in the United States never go to trial, that this does not mean that in the majority of plea bargains include an agreement to testify in court. There have been some notable cases in the news of late where accused criminals agreed to testify against co-conspirators with the understanding that they would plead guilty to less serious charges. Oddly, both cases involved athletes: Michael Vick and O.J. Simpson. In both cases, prosecutors sought incriminating testimony in order to improve their case against the star athletes. However, it is worth keeping in mind that in most cases plea bargains are entered into simply to avoid going to trial. Criminal trials are basically winner take all propositions, which make them relatively risky for both prosecution and defense. Further, in the United States, where the criminal justice system is crowded with cases, plea deals are sometimes offered simply to resolve cases quickly and more efficiently. Whether this results in defendants pleading guilty to crimes they didn't commit or to lesser crimes than they actually did commit is on open question, one that ought to be researched and explored by debaters preparing to debate these cases. Could plea bargaining in exchange for testimony be just in other countries but not in the United States? Is there something that makes plea bargaining in the United States different from plea bargaining anywhere else? If so, what? If not, then what's the importance of this phrase? To begin to explore answers to these questions, it is as always important when discussing any criminal justice issue in the United States to recall that the United States federalist system. Though the Constitution, as interpreted by the Courts and years of practice, has set a certain framework within which they must operate, state and local governments are provided with a wide degree of latitude in setting up their criminal justice systems. For this reason, the way that plea bargaining is used in the United States can vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. |
[Edit] Motion analysisAn affirmative could try to argue that, on balance, the way jurisdictions employ plea bargaining in exchange for testimony in the United States is unjust. In this case, the affirmative would not be arguing that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is inherently unjust, but that it is simply unjust the way it is generally done in the United States. To make this case, though, the affirmative would need to set up criteria for showing when plea bargaining in exchange for testimony would be just and then present hard evidence that in the United States most jurisdictions do not satisfy these criteria when bargaining for testimony. This would probably be a tough a case to make, since it is unclear how one could establish criteria for the just exchange of testimony for a lighter sentence and then be able to show, empirically, that these criteria are not met in a significant number of cases where bargaining takes place. There are some indicators, like the well documented difficulty the poor have in securing adequate legal counsel, which could suggest that defendants are at a great disadvantage when dealing with the government in many cases. Still, the burden of proof of the affirmative in this instance would be quite heavy. If the affirmative argues that the in the United States, currently, the the use of plea bargaining to get testimony in a trial, negative will want to raise the question of whether the affirmative believes the system is beyond repair. If the affirmative tries to argue that it is, then the debate will effectively become about the inherent injustice of plea bargaining in exchange for testimony. If the affirmative argues that it might be repairable, but that the affirmative's burden is only to show that plea bargaining in exchange for justice is unjust presently, then the debate could get rather messy. The affirmative that adopts this strategy should be armed with a lot of evidence showing that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony as practiced in the United States today is unjust. It might prove difficult for the negative to refute each piece of evidence and, therefore, the negative would need to focus on the criteria that the affirmative offered as a basis for weighing this evidence. Additionally, the negative should of course question whether the evidence the affirmative presented showed more than just isolated instances of the unjust use of plea bargaining for testimony was unjust. Finally, the the negative should question the affirmative's assertion that affirmative only needs to show that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is currently being misused in the United States as opposed to it being inherently unjust for the practice to be used in the United States. An affirmative could, of course, also try to argue that in some cases in the United States plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust, but few judges are likely to accept that affirmative has so light a burden in this round. The most promising route the affirmative can take is to argue either that there is little significance to the phrase "In the United States" in the topic, that the topic could just as easily have stipulated "In a just society" in place of "In the United States," or that there are features of the United States constitutional framework that make plea bargaining in exchange for testimony unjust. Of these two choices, the latter is probably the more promising. In arguing this topic, however, it is important that both sides consider whether they're arguing for or against plea bargaining in and of itself, or simply the practice of plea bargaining in exchange for testimony. Another thing to keep in mind is that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony, though not as common as plea bargaining is not something being proposed by this topic but a practice that's taken place in the United States for some time now. This means that the affirmative needs to be careful when offering cause and effect arguments. That is, the affirmative can't say "if we allow plea bargaining in exchange for testimony then scores of innocent people will be convicted of crimes they didn't commit" without having hard evidence to back this claim up. If plea bargaining of this type has bad effects, these effects should already have occurred. It is also important to note that at the point in the criminal justice process when plea deals are offered a plea bargain in exchange for testimony both the person offered the plea and the person against who testimony, in the United States' criminal justice system, retain a presumption of innocence. Westlaw's Law.com defines testimony as "oral evidence given under oath by a witness in answer to questions posed by attorneys at trial or at a deposition (questioning under oath outside of court)." Testimony is usually limited to bare facts; opinions and inferences are generally discouraged because they offer the opinion of the witness and consequently do not provide an objective account of the crime. Since the topic does specify "testimony" as opposed to simply "information", one affirmative strategy could be to argue that the defense does not have an equivalent ability to bargain for testimony and since the testimony gained through plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is inherently suspect, that bargains ought not be made for the sake of testimony but that bargains may be used to gain needed information. There may be cases, an affirmative could argue, when the government may determine that the need to gather information outweighs the potential injustice of letting a suspect plea bargain, but that bargaining for information is different from bargaining for testimony. There will be other negatives who might try to question the just/unjust dichotomy and argue that there is a third category of actions: actions that are neither just nor unjust. Deciding what to call this category of actions, though, is something that should immediately give these negatives a degree of self-doubt. One would think, if there was a category of actions that we neither just nor unjust, that there would be some obvious word that could be used to describe those actions. No such word exists. One could call an action "morally neutral," in this case meaning neither right nor wrong. For instance, when one looks at a menu in a restaurant and has to decide between the carrots or peas as a vegetable, few would describe choosing one vegetable over the other an immoral or for that matter unjust act. It's trivially true that the choice between the side dishes on a menu is not a decision of much moral significance. However, in terms of justice, there is no way to say that a choice like this "ajust." The choice of either peas or carrots is, in fact, just. This is trivially true, but nonetheless worth noting: in choosing between eating peas or eating carrots the diner is obviously choosing between two just options. So that leaves us with the more pressing question of figuring out a criterion for determining whether plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust. The hackneyed "giving each his or her due," though vague is nonetheless a good starting point. When it comes to criminal justice, most people have a general sense of what justice requires: punishing the guilty and protecting the innocent. At first glance, therefore, one could say that if plea bargaining in exchange for testimony does not insure that the guilty are punished and the innocent protected, then it would be unjust. Unfortunately, things aren't that simple. One of the problems that society's face in designing their criminal justice systems is determining how to properly balance a desire to protect the innocent and to punish the guilty. Clearly, putting criminals in jail protects the innocent public. However, we also realize that it would be wrong to protect society from shoplifters by chopping off their hands. Punishment needs to fit the crime, and one of the problems that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony raises is whether by giving some criminals lighter sentences than they perhaps deserve in exchange for testimony against someone else that an injustice has occurred. Is the wrong of letting one person get a lighter sentence than he or she merits offset by society gaining testimony that could be used against a more serious offender? Arguably yes, but the weighing mechanism that society uses in order to determine the justice of this transaction cannot be precise. Put simply, the scale of justice are not that easy to balance. Another thing to consider is the specific context in which this resolution is set: the United States. There are three provisions of the United States Constitution that are relevant to this debate topic: The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (the italicized text is commonly referred to as the Due Process clause). Though originally only a restriction on the Federal Government, this restriction on the power of the the federal government is understood to have been incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and now applies to the States. The Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a right to a jury trial: " In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." In considering these three provisions of the Constitution, however, it is important for the affirmative to keep in mind that the Supreme Court has not had much to say about plea bargaining in exchange for testimony and given the prevalence of the practice one has little choice but to interpret the Court's silence as consent. The most important Supreme Court decision that dealt with plea bargaining dealt with a very narrow issue of someone accepting a plea arrangement in order to avoid a death sentence without in fact admitting guilt (see North Caroline v. Alfrod, 400 U.S. 25 (1970) . One could be tempted to argue that the criteria to use when considering the justness of a part of the United States' criminal justice system ought to be whether the practice comports with the United States' Constitution. The only problem here is that the constitutionality of a practice, in and of itself, is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to establishing its moral legitimacy. No better evidence of this can be found than in Article Four, Section 2 of the Constitution, which reads: " No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." Though this section of the the constitution was superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, one could not reasonably argue that the practice of returning fugitive slaves to their master was ever just, even if until the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment it was a practice not only permitted but required by the Constitution. However, while constitutionality could not serve as a sole criteria for determining the justness of plea bargaining in exchange for testimony, this should not preclude the affirmative from running the argument that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is unconstitutional. In doing so, however, the affirmative will have to explain why these provisions of the constitution are just in and of themselves and why their violation is wrong. The affirmative, though, can argue that there is an injustice in violating a just provision of a written constitution even that could trump the benefit that might be achieved through such violation. [Edit] A note on the NFL DefinitionA Note on the National Forensic League's Definition: of Plea Bargaining in Exchange for Testimony The National Forensic League offers the following definition of plea bargaining in its topic overview topic overview: "the reduction in sentence for one guilty individual in exchange for information regarding another illegal act or guilty individual." This definition, which the NFL makes clear should not be quoted in the round, makes a questionable assumption: that both the person who offers testimony in exchange for a plea arrangement and the person against whom this information is used are in fact guilty. In the United States, individuals accused of crime are rightly considered innocent until proven guilty. Plea bargains are offered to defendants at a point in the criminal justice process when guilt has not yet been proven. Now, the assumption that an innocent person would never agree to plead guilty to a crime he or she didn't commit is a flawed one. An innocent person, fearing conviction for a crime he or she didn't commit, might reasonably choose to plead guilty to a charge simply to avoid being convicted of a more serious charge. Further, the fact that the prosecution has to offer a plea bargain in exchange for testimony suggests it does not have sufficient evidence against the accused to prove him or her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is entirely within the realm of possibility, then, that a fearful but innocent defendant, fearing an unjust conviction, might decide to offer false testimony in order to secure a guarantee of a lighter sentence through an equally false plea of guilty to a false charge. [Edit] A note on the presumption of innocenceThough rightly considered a cornerstone of the United States' criminal justice system, the concept that a person is innocent until proven guilty is no where mentioned in the United States Constitution. In all likelihood, the Founders simply took this truth for granted, carrying it over from the British Common Law. Justice White, Coffin v. the United States, 156 U.S. 432 (1895), stated it best when he wrote: "The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law. It is stated as unquestioned in the textbooks, and has been referred to as a matter of course in the decisions of this court and in the courts of the several states." This idea that justice demands that those accused of crimes should be considered innocent until proven guilty is not unique to the United States nor is it particularly new. [Edit] Alternative approachCan Plea Bargaining in Exchange for Justice be "Necessary but not just?" There are always some debaters, when confronted with a topic that asks if a given policy is just, who will try to argue that the policy is "necessary but not just." For instance, there are those who argue that the death penalty is not just, but "necessary." These arguments, however, are in almost every case wholly specious. In the case of this topic this is more true than in most. First, there is no way that, strictly speaking, plea bargaining in exchange for testimony could really be called "necessary." Obviously, the prosecution could simply try to convict both defendants without offering one a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against the other. Some negatives might try to argue that the only way to elicit the testimony that the prosecution believes is necessary to gain a conviction is by offering a plea deal to another defendant. However, strictly speaking, this can't be true. There are other methods that could be used to elicit testimony other than through a plea bargain. For instance, the prosecution can offer something other than a plea bargain in order to entice a recalcitrant witness to testify. For instance, a prosecutor could offer a witness money for his or her testimony. This, indeed, is common practice when it come to expert witnesses. The prosecution could also, conceivably, use less savory means of eliciting testimony, like threats or even torture. The affirmative might try to argue that having to offer one accused criminal a lighter sentence in exchange for testimony is in and of its unjust, and that even if doing so results in a greater good for society, there is no denying that an injustice has occurred in that an accused criminal has been offered a lighter sentence than he or she might have merited. The argument here would run along the lines that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is nothing more than a "necessary evil." However, there really is no such thing as a "necessary evil" is as much of an oxymoron as a "deafening silence." For the affirmative to argue that it is necessary for the prosecution to offer a witness a plea deal, it would have to be the case that to fail to do so would be immoral. That is, the necessity involved in clearly not a physical necessity. The prosecutor is not compelled to offer a plea bargain in the same way that a rock thrown from a window will necessarily fall. The necessity in question is a moral necessity: the prosecutor who failed to offer a plea bargain, the affirmative has to be arguing, would be acting contrary to the demands of justice. However, how could it be wrong to do that which it would be wrong not to do? That is nonsensical. When faced with a choice between two actions, both of which would produce some degree of harm, the only way it could be necessary for an agent to choose one course of action over another is if it would be wrong to choose one of the two alternatives. The fact that the agent might not have had a third option, which could have resulted in less or no harm to anyone, is unfortunate but not in it of itself immoral. However, as we have already discussed, there are obviously more than just two options at the prosecutor's disposal. In the end, the affirmative that conceded to the negative that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is necessary has conceded the round to the negative. Further, the assumption that both the affirmative and the negative who argue that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is somehow necessary fails to recognize the fact that the criminal justice system requires that each person get a fair trial, not that certain defendants must, at all costs, be convicted. Given that every defendant is innocent until proven guilty, what moral necessity could there be to torture, bribe or coerce testimony against an accused? The prosecution's obligation is to prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. One could easily argue that if a prosecutor could really only convict an accused criminal using testimony that is elicited through a plea bargain, that there is obviously something lacking in the prosecution's case. This is particularly true when the veracity of the testimony cannot be independently verified. [Edit] Argumentation overview: | |
[Edit] Pro
An important strategic choice the affirmative must make is whether to argue against the practice of plea bargaining as whole or just plea bargaining in exchange for testimony. Affirmative could try to argue first that plea bargaining is in general unjust but then contend that even if this weren't true that plea bargaining in exchange of testimony is unjust. Adopting a two tiered "even if" approach to affirming is always somewhat risky since the danger is the appearance that the affirmative is contradictory. Further, the negative could always concede that plea bargaining in general is wrong, but that when its necessary to elicit testimony it is just. If affirmative chooses to argue against plea bargaining in its entirety, the debate will likely center on the potential injustice of trying to convince an innocent person to plead guilty to a crime he or she didn't commit or of allowing a criminal to receive a less severe punishment than justice might require. The question that affirmative will need to consider, if choosing to argue against plea bargaining in and of itself, is why the state engages in such a practice. In the United States, as noted above, the main reason that plea bargaining takes place is to avoid the uncertainties of a trial. Attorneys for the prosecution and the defense will carefully weigh what they believe to be their chances of success if a case goes to trial and weigh that against the offer being made by the other side. A prosecutor might offer a defendant the chance to plead guilty to a lesser charge in order to avoid the defendant being acquitted of a more serious charge and set free. Double jeopardy prevents the state from putting a person on trial for the same offense more than once. An interesting question is whether the process of plea bargaining is one that leads to the most just outcome. The goal of any criminal justice system ought to be to convict the guilty and free the innocent. Now, the American criminal justice system rests on the assumption, carried over from the British common law tradition, that the injustice of convicting the innocent is greater than that of allowing the guilty go free. William Blackstone's well known maxim that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" is one that rests at the core of the American criminal justice system. In American criminal courts, the burden of proof rests squarely on the state: people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Some negatives may try to argue that in determining the justice of plea bargaining that convicting the innocent is no worse than acquitting the guilty; affirmatives should be prepared to refute such a claim. The question then is whether plea bargaining maximizes the chances of that only the guilty are punished for having committed crimes. Criminal justice is, unfortunately, not an exact science. John Rawls distinguished between three forms of procedural justice in his classic work A Theory of Justice: Perfect procedural justice has two characteristics: (1) an independent criterion for what constitutes a fair or just outcome of the procedure, and (2) a procedure that guarantees that the fair outcome will be achieved. Imperfect procedural justice shares the first characteristic of perfect procedural justice--there is an independent criterion for a fair outcome--but no method that guarantees that the fair outcome will be achieved. Pure procedural justice describes situations in which there are no criterion for what constitutes a just outcome other than the procedure itself.[2] Criminal justice systems are an example of "imperfect procedural justice." The affirmative will need to argue that plea bargaining makes the American criminal justice system less likely to achieve the desired outcome, placing a premium on insuring that the innocent are not punished for crimes they did not commit. Whether plea bargaining makes the United States' criminal justice system more or less just is to a large extent an empirical question. If plea bargaining makes it more likely for innocent people to go free and the guilty to receive punishments that they deserve, then it will be relatively difficult for the affirmative to prove the practice of plea bargaining unjust. Given that the vast majority of criminal cases in the United States never go to trial, and are instead settled through plea arrangements, for the affirmative to claim that somehow plea is unjust they would have to be able to give hard, empirical evident, that the status quo is not working in the United States. It's not enough for the affirmative to make unwarranted claims of cause and effect (e.g. "Plea bargaining will result in innocent pleading pleading guilty to crimes they didn't commit and guilty people getting lighter sentence). Given that plea bargaining has been such a large part of the American criminal justice for such a long time at this point, any claims that the affirmative makes about the harms that plea bargaining brings should be supported with evidence. Hopefully, people will be adding some references to studies of the affect of plea bargaining on the American criminal justice. When it comes to plea bargaining in exchange for testimony, however, the affirmative could argue that this exchange is an inherently unjust means to achieve potentially just ends. The easiest way to illustrate will be to consider two other practices: bribery and torture. Suppose a defendant, offers to donate a lot of money to charity in exchange for a lighter sentence? Most would agree that the wealthy ought not to be able to exchange money for a lighter sentence. In fact, one of the most common criticisms of the American criminal justice system is that the poor are far more likely to be convicted when they are charged with the same crime. The ability of people to exchange money for a lighter sentence is widely considered an injustice. Why, then, should be it right for a person to exchange information for a lighter sentence? Surely, a large donation to charity might do more good for society than paying to have someone serve time behind bars, so why not let the wealthy criminals trade their wealth for their freedom? Similarly, while the state often will often offer rewards for people who provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of wanted criminals, even tough citizens ought to offer this information to the state free of charge, most would object if the state started to offer people money to testify against criminals in trials. While it is a common practice to pay "expert witnesses" to testify at a trial, this too is a practice that's commonly criticized and is not really analogous to paying for non-expert testimony. Most people in our morally aware country would agree that torture is wrong. Of course, offering people a lighter sentence in exchange for testimony is not the moral equivalent of torturing them. Nonetheless, the problems inherent to using torture to elicit testimony are not unlike those that the affirmative to attribute to plea bargaining in exchange for testimony. Information that victims of torture provide is notoriously suspect. The torture victim will say anything to put the torture to an end. In fact, there's a long history of torture being used to elicit false confessions and information used at trials. A person confronted with long prison sentence could similarly be thought of as having every incentive to lie in order to escape that fate. However, even if the information extracted through torture were reliable, most people would still recognize that the ends in these cases don't justify the means. The affirmative can argue that threatening a person with a harsher sentence than they might otherwise get in order to elicit testimony from them is not that much different from torturing them. The analogy to torture might prove particularly effective for affirmative in those rounds where the negative insists that the ends justify the means. Affirmative will want to press the negative on this point.
The best line of questioning for the affirmative will focus on how plea bargaining in exchange for testimony potentially shifts the delicate balance of the United States criminal justice system away from protecting the innocents towards conviction of the guilty. At the very least, the United States criminal justice system is premised on the claim that all else being equal it would be better to let a guilty person go free than to punish an innocent individual. Whether that necessarily means that it is better than ten or a hundred guilty go free rather than have one innocent person convicted or plead guilty to a crime he or she didn't commit is not so clear. |
[Edit] Con
There really aren't that many choices for the negative. Other than some silly deconstruction of the notion of justice that results in the claim that "since the concept of justice is meaningless no practice can rightly be termed 'unjust,'" the negative's strategy is to argue, simply, that plea bargaining in exchange for testimony is just because it is elicits testimony necessary that can be used to imprison criminals that society needs to get off the streets. The picture the negative will want to paint is of the state offering a petty thief a deal to avoid a lengthy prison term in exchange for testimony that would get a mass murderer off the streets. The negative wants to make it seem that the person whose testimony is being purchased through a plea bargain will still receive a just amount of punishment for a crime that he or she actually committed and that he or she will offer truthful testimony absolutely necessary for the state to convict a ruthless criminal. The negative might try a strategy of trying to avoid a detailed discussion of the current practice of plea bargaining in the United States and to argue, instead, that the topic is asking simply whether the practice is in principle just. This would allow the negative to offer some criteria for when it is just for a prosecutor to offer a person a plea deal in exchange for testimony. This way the negative can avoid having to defend the status quo and potentially even offer a plan that might improve on it. Being able to set a set of criteria under which plea bargaining in exchange for testimony would be just in the United States saves the negative the trouble of showing that on balance the system is working properly in the United States today, which might simply be too difficult to prove. The negative's best arguments are pragmatic ones that focus on the moral obligation the state has to protection of individual rights. If the state determines that, on balance, plea bargaining in exchange for testimony results in more criminals off the streets and fewer innocents behind behind bars or victims of crimes, it better protects the rights of its citizens. Negative will need to weigh carefully how far to go in shifting the balance of power between the prosecution and the defense. While it's possible to argue that by offering some defendants a chance to plead guilty to a lighter sentence benefits them, on balance plea bargaining in general and plea bargaining in exchange for testimony specifically seems to give prosecutors a tool to guarantee convictions. Only in cases where the accused are actually guilty and are being offered a lighter sentence than they might get if they lose at trial can an accused be said to have benefited from a plea deal. Further, while there are safeguards built into the United States' criminal justice system, the negative would be foolish to assert that there are no dangers whatsoever involved in the process. Negative might try to argue that United States criminal justice system ought to abandon Blackstone's ratio and not weigh protecting the innocent against false conviction more heavily than convicting the guilty. It's a risky strategy, but it could work. A better strategy, however, would likely be to argue that the threat to innocents in this case is minimal if not negligible on account of the checks inherent in this system. Given that the United States Court system is overwhelmed and plea bargaining is a practical if not moral necessity at this point, the negative might be on firm ground here, particularly given that plea bargaining and plea bargaining in exchange for testimony have been practiced for years now with the Supreme Court's mostly tacit consent.
Given that plea bargaining for testimony has been practiced for some time now in the United States, the negative should probably ask the affirmative why, if the practice unjust, why it has not resulted either in some quantifiable injustices (e.g. large numbers of innocent people being convicted of crimes they haven't committed) or been subject to negative review by the Supreme Court.
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[Edit] Societal safety/health: Does plea bargaining in exchange for testimony fail to protect society? | |
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[Edit] Due dessert? Does plea bargaining in exchange for testimony violate the notion of due dessert? | |
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[Edit] Constitution/Due process: Is there inadequate due process in plea bargaining in exchange for testimony? | |
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[Edit] Testimony reliability: Is the testimony given in exchange for a plea bargain unreliable? | |
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[Edit] Defendant rights: Are defendants' rights violated in plea bargain exchanges for testimony? | |
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[Edit] Court strains: Is plea bargaining in exchange for testimony a bad way to reduce judicial strains? | |
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[Edit] Victims: Is plea bargaining in exchange for testimony fair to victims? | |
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[Edit] Bribe? - Is plea bargaining for testimony similar to bribery? | |
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[Edit] The poor: Is plea bargaining in exchange for testimony unfair to the poor? | |
[Edit] Pro
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[Edit] Immigrants: Are there negative consequences for immigrants? | |
[Edit] Pro
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[Edit] Economics: Are economic considerations insignificant or unfounded? | |
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[Edit] Pro/con sources - The main pro/con cases | |
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[Edit] See also[Edit] Further reading
[Edit] External links and resources
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